Debating Your Budtender in Silverdale

As noted here in recent columns, storefront collectives have come to Kitsap County, a few years after their appearance in King and Pierce counties. I recently visited shops in Gorst and Bremerton, and can now add Silverdale to the Kitsap cannabis list.

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Greenthumb Silverdale was the shop I visited, on Kitsap Place just off Silverdale Way. The first thing I learned was that if another patient gets there just before you, you’re going to be waiting until they get done in the bud room; I had a wait of about 10 minutes.

Once it was my turn, I was pleased to note that all strains are just $9 a gram. About 20 strains are listed on Greenthumb’s WeedMaps entry, but I saw only about a dozen in the display case on the day I visited.

Making my way through the strain selection with budtender Logan wasn’t an entirely stress-free experience. Logan seemed slightly irritated by my questions (to which he didn’t have answers) regarding the genetic origins of a couple strains, but I honestly wasn’t trying to give him a hard time. I was just genuinely curious; I like to know my medicine.

Sniffing the Head Cheese strain, a sativa, I innocently remarked that I thought I could detect some Diesel (another iconic strain) in its bouquet. “I think that would be the other way around,” Logan muttered.

“I’m sorry, what would be the other way around?” I asked.

“The genetics,” Logan said. “Cheese came before Diesel.”

Whoa, I thought. Maybe this is some sort of “tough love” tactic. Unconventional sales method, perhaps? But even as I was grappling with that, I was pretty darn sure Diesel came first, so I countered, “Wait a minute; East Coast Sour Diesel’s been around for more than 20 years.”

“OK,” Logan said, giving me a look telegraphing that it wasn’t. “But the Dutch have been breeding strains a lot longer than we have, and the Dutch bred Cheese.” I decided not to invest any more energy in the debate, but when I got home I asked two experts—Amsterdam cannabis activist Peter Lunk and Canadian author Matt Mernagh, author of Marijuana Smoker’s Guidebook: The Easy Way to Identify and Enjoy Marijuana Strains (2013, Green Candy Press)—which came first, and they both agree: Diesel. To celebrate, I burned a doob of the Cheese.

Cheese is recommended for energetic morning medication. Its heavily crystallized, trichome-covered flowers, which burn better in a bowl than in a joint, almost immediately zap nausea.

When I asked Logan (once we’d stopped debating genetics) about the best indica in the house, he guided me toward the Bubba Kush. A toke test revealed this popular strain to be effective for pain control. More than a few tokes of BK results in a pleasant, heavy-limbed lassitude and eventually sleepiness.

Greenthumb Silverdale shares an e-mail address and, apparently, management with Tacoma Greenthumb—which, interestingly, charges $11 a gram across the board instead of just $9 like the Silverdale shop.